Originally reported by Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman on ’32 Thoughts’ and passed along by Patrick Present of The Hockey News, the Anaheim Ducks are close to signing one of their relatively recent draft picks. According to the report, the Ducks are close to signing Artyom Galimov from the KHL’s Ak Bars Kazan and it could come before the end of the KHL season.
Anaheim selected Galimov with the 159th overall pick of the 2020 NHL Draft and there wasn’t much expected of him at the time. He scored 13 goals and 23 points in 55 games for Ak Bars Kazan during his draft year and stayed relatively consistent over the next four years.
He hasn’t garnered many headlines in the KHL, and his odds of ever making it to North America were becoming increasingly long. In the subsequent four seasons after being drafted in 2020, Galimov scored 25 goals and 37 assists in 202 games for Ak Bars Kazan with another four goals and eight assists in 47 postseason contests. That kind of production hardly warranted an entry-level contract in the NHL.
As indicated by Friedman’s report, Galimov’s stock has dramatically changed this year. He’s scored 22 goals and 41 points in 44 games while managing a +23 rating. He’s tied for eighth across the entire league in goal-scoring and has helped Ak Bars into a comfortable second place in the Eastern Conference.
Depending on the urgency the Ducks have in bringing Galimov to North America, they may allow him to finish the season with Ak Bars and continue with their inevitable playoff run. Still, if Anaheim is confident Galimov can continue scoring goals in the NHL, they could certainly use an addition like him immediately.